Muncie considers ethics commission for city business

The Muncie City Council has begun a process that could create a code of ethics and ethics commission for public officials, city employees, and others that do business with Muncie.  IPR’s Stephanie Wiechmann explains.

The process begins with appointing an ethics advisory committee.  After discussions among council members, it will have nine bipartisan members.  Some have to be lawyers, human resource professionals, accountants, and ethics and government professors at Ball State – but not all.

The resolution passed Monday night comes from council president Jeff Robinson, who is running for mayor this year as a Democrat.  He says he didn’t want any members of council or the city administration serving on the committee.

“Most elected officials are, I’m sure, very good people who really try to do their best.  But we all know that there are rotten apples out there.  So I wish that I could say and trust that we could police ourselves, but we just can’t.”

That committee will have 18 months to decide what an ethics commission or new code of ethics should look like in Muncie.  Then, as councilman Troy Ingram says, they’ll bring those ideas back to the city council.

“This resolution is only to form a committee that will develop the code of ethics and establish the actual enforcement procedure.  We’re not actually confirming that we’re going to do this or anything else.”

Robinson confirms that council – in 18 months – will get to decide what to do with the committee’s ideas.

Robinson said more than 20 cities, towns, and counties have something like an ethics commission already in place, listing out places across the state, including Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.

Public comments on Monday night agreed that a look at ethics in Muncie is overdue.  Muncie has long had the nickname of “Little Chicago” for past political misdeeds.  More recently, a years-long FBI corruption investigation convicted seven people in Muncie, including three public officials in office at the time of their arrests – the mayor, building commissioner, and sanitary district administrator.

The resolution hopes any ethics code would include rules for people who do business with Muncie.  In the last month, questions about an apartment developer by local media caused the company to back out of its business in Muncie.  A similar process happened with a zinc oxide manufacturing facility set to come to Delaware County in 2019.

The vote was not unanimous.  Councilman Isaac Miller expressed concerns about how “loosely defined” the resolution was.  During discussion, he wanted city attorneys to consider drafting another resolution or an ethics policy plan instead.

The council will appoint members of the ethics advisory committee in future meetings.